Apple Is Reportedly Working On A Feature To Help You Use Its Own Products Less

Is 2018 the year we kick our smartphone addiction?
|

We’ve seen Apple unveil a whole host of health-related features in the last few years from helping you get an early night to even monitoring your heartbeat.

Well now the tech giant is reportedly turning its gaze on itself as it looks to tackle the issue of tech addiction.

Following in the footsteps of Google’s new wellbeing features for Android, and Instagram’s ‘Time Spent’ feature, Apple is now also apparently working on a set of features based around how much we use our favourite gadgets.

Open Image Modal
gece33 via Getty Images

Bloomberg has spoken to sources close to the development process and apparently the new set of features will be included in iOS 12 which is set to be unveiled by Apple on Monday 4th June at WWDC 2018.

While Apple’s physical health app is called simply Health, this new feature will reportedly be called Digital Health and will be an option in the Settings app.

It’s not clear what specific features will be included but it’s worth noting that Apple’s Settings app already includes some pretty comprehensive analysis of how much you use your phone in relation to the battery consumption.

Based off competitors and the current trend features could include showing you how often you look at your phone, how often you use certain apps and how long for or even how much you pick up your smartphone every day.

What’ll be interesting to see is if they include these features into the Apple Watch as well. It already has a number of wellness features including a Breathe app and a reminder that helps you walk around when it thinks you’ve been sat down for too long.

Google recently announced that it would be tackling wellbeing with a new app for Android called Dashboard. The app breaks down your usage into a simple pie chart and then allows you to even set time limits on the apps you think you use too much.

Apple’s own efforts have been subtle so far, with its most notable push being the Bedtime feature which was quietly added to the Clock app on the iPhone.